I take a step toward her, and she hooks her fingers in my belt loops and pulls me close.
I grin. “No one. I march to the beat of my own drum.”
She smiles up at me. “I’ll learn your weakness, Tristan Stone, and then you should be really scared.”
She’s my weakness right now.
Hence the fact that the second I laid eyes on her, I had to have her.
Which is a really bad thing.
“I don’t have any,” I lie.
Her hand moves to my chest. “Sure you don’t.” She pats me. “I should go. If Suzanne realizes I’m not in my seat, she’ll come looking for me.” Lark lifts up on her toes, kissing me softly. “See you tonight?”
I snake my arm around her waist, hoisting her up so we’re face-to-face. “Bring snacks. You’re going to need your energy.”
Her eyes brighten as her smile grows. “I look forward to it, Ben Thrustin.”
“See you later, Jenna Talia.”
I kiss her briefly and duck out of the stall before anyone sees me.
“Where the hell did you go?” Jimmy asks as we’re walking to get a beer.
“Huh?” I play dumb.
“You disappeared. I saw you talking to Holcomb, and then next thing I knew, you were gone.”
Sometimes I’m grateful for Jimmy’s inability to put two and two together. After my quick and gratifying sexual encounter, I walked around, hoping that it would appear like I was just aimlessly strolling.
What I was doing was working to think about anything other than the fun I plan to have tonight with Lark.
And then I tried to remember why this entire thing with Lark is a bad idea and that I should stop thinking about her—but that’s impossible.
So I just kept walking until finally stumbling into Jimmy and a few guys we knew back in the day.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I talked to Holcomb and met you back here.”
“Yeah, but you were in the back and then…never mind,” he says with a sigh when we get to the front of the line. “Two beers.”
Jimmy pays for the drinks—the asshole owes me for the constant harassment and idle threats of arrest. He hands me one, looks around, and then groans.
“What?”
He tilts his bottle toward a group of people. “That’s what.”
I look over and see Suzanne, Lark, and two other girls from high school. I just saw her, and yet it feels like it’s the first time. She looks so beautiful, freshly fucked and smiling as the people around her talk.
Her eyes meet mine for half a second, and her cheeks redden before she looks back at the group.
I wonder whether she’s thinking about where we were just a few minutes ago. What we were doing. The sounds she made, the way I took her rough in a damn horse stall.
All of it has been like a loop in my mind, one that I’m happy to let keep going around.
“Let’s go back to our seats. Maybe they won’t see us.”
“Officer Langston, as I live and breathe!” Suzanne calls to him, waving. “Don’t you look sexy without that uniform on.”
